Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg!

[Jurgy25]

Bettman hasn't confirmed that the Atlanta Thrashers will be moving to Winnipeg, but an agreement is now in place. The official deal announcement should be made on Tuesday. Winnipeg would then have an NHL team in the upcoming 2011/12 season.

 

[KC37]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Versus just cited the Toronto Globe and Mail as reporting the story as true, as soon as a sale is approved. This is good for the NHL; more Canadian teams seem like a good thing.

 

[Jurgy25]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Versus just cited the Toronto Globe and Mail as reporting the story as true, as soon as a sale is approved. This is good for the NHL; more Canadian teams seem like a good thing.

Absolutely. Why give a team to Atlanta, Phoenix, or Florida (Panthers), when they can't even fill up half the arena. Cities like Winnipeg and Quebec would love to have a team back again.

 

[G $MONEY$]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Would love to see Winnipeg get their NHL team back. That city is a Hockey mad place and they should have an NHL team.

 

[P_Manning 18]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Winnipeg Thrashers or Winnipeg Jets?

It would be fun to see the Quebec Nordiques back too.... Could Hartford support a team again?

Florida Panthers could be moved... bring some life back to Quebec.

 

[bmc398]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

THis sucks balls. As a Thrashers fan and regular attendee the move is ********. Management would never pay for the type of players that would fill an arena and make fans want to come.

They finally had a little of that this year, but when you have uninspired play and a huge January and February slide from 2nd in the east to 10th....fans will of course not continue to support that kind of crap. Id expect that to happen in most markets should play go downhill that much.

The Thrashers were simply used as a tax shelter to write off expenses as losses that the ownership group incurred operating the arena AND another franchise. The team was losing money...but it was nowhere close to the $40Million they claimed they were....it was just simply that any revenue the Thrashers made was funneled into other parts of the group and any loss the arena or the Hawks took was funneled to look like the Thrashers were miserable unprofitable.

Its a shame that such mismanagement of this franchise was allowed. Were the Thrashers ever going to be a top franchise? Of course not....but its ignorant to laud the returning of hockey to bumfuck north Canada where its failed already without realizing the great effect that the Atlanta franchise has had in exposing hockey to a totally new audience that would have never considered watching it or playing it.

As you can tell by the rant....Im pissed about the situation. Hockey was never going to be the top sport here in Atlanta...but it had its place. Of course the Atlanta Spirit Group has a business to run, but when you basically use your less popular franchise to try and bolster your more popular one its obvious that the commitment isn't there to win games and achieve on the ice....its just to field a team long enough to get a cush tax write off and profit from the sale.

The gross mismanagement makes me sick. I will never attend an Atlanta Spirit Group sporting event ever again.

 

[TurbosHockey]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Ummmm didn't you guys have the Flames before in dudaville Ga?

 

[thefatguy]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Sorry bmc

at least I'll get to see Evander Kane more

 

[200lbhockeyplayer]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

This is a great move.

Totally biased, but Raleigh really seems to be the only perceived "non-hockey" city that really works well for the NHL. Why? With only college sports (Duke, UNC, NC State) and minor league baseball (Durham Bulls, Carolina Mudcats) outsiders are blown away by the support that the Hurricanes get.

Atlanta is kind of a dump for pro sports anyways, minus the Falcons.

 

[bmc398]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

This is a great move.

Totally biased, but Raleigh really seems to be the only perceived "non-hockey" city that really works well for the NHL. Why? With only college sports (Duke, UNC, NC State) and minor league baseball (Durham Bulls, Carolina Mudcats) outsiders are blown away by the support that the Hurricanes get.

Atlanta is kind of a dump for pro sports anyways, minus the Falcons.

Braves? C'mon. The Braves were the only MLB baseball team for like 30 years in the Southeast until expansion in the 90s.

The Hawks are poorly run but look better because all of the losses associate with them and Phillips arena are dumped off on the Thrashers balance sheet.

I'd defintely rate the Braves franchise over the Falcons right now even thought he Falcons have really done EVERYTHING right since Arthur Blank bought the team.

NHL hockey COULD have been successful here as well. If your ownership group isn't going to take the team seriously and doesn't invest in real talent and winning....yeah, casual fans aren't going to want to come out and support you.

Moving the team to Winnipeg is retarded. Moving a team from a city with over 6 million people within an hour drive of the stadium to an area where there are 300,000 within an hour drive of the stadium is not a real smart business move. Hamilton, Ontario....ok, thats a smart move. Thats a real city. Winnipeg? Cmon.

The real issue behind this wasn't fan support, it was lack of ownership support over the past 4 years. But what do I know? Sure...take our team away...to another place that had a team taken away....

 

[thefatguy]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Hockey returned to Minnesota successfully.
If someone in Atlanta wanted the team, they would have stepped up. Even Glendale city council is willing to put up another $25M to keep the Coyotes for another season. (Public money going to a hockey team would never fly in Canada...kinda)

Im sorry you're losing your team, I am. But the NHL approved this ownership, and it looks like they're only willing to prop up 1 franchise at a time.

 

[plainwhitejerseys]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Awful for the league and awful for the game.

You don't expand your brand by ditching a market sector to sell to people who are already buying your product.

 

[G $MONEY$]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

I do feel sorry for fans like bmc when a city loses a professional team. Its never good for a city to lose a professional team to another city. At least you guys in Atlanta still have other professional sports though like Braves, Falcons and Hawks. Think about Winnipeg though when they originally lost the Jets , those were some VERY long, cold and depressing winters in Winnipeg without the Jets (no other professional sports during the Winter months, only CFL in the Summer), especially the first few years after losing their team. For many in Winnipeg, the Jets were the only thing people looked forward to in the winters and after they lost their team, some people in Winnipeg actually started suffering from depression without the Jets (true story).

 

[gt2590]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

When your city has lost TWO pro hockey teams, it's pretty obvious that Atlanta isn't going to work as a hockey town. Miami either BTW. Winni may be much smaller but selling out that stadium will never be a problem. Winnipeg had its team taken away by a greedy owner looking for big bucks. They didn't do anything to show a lack of support.

And Atlanta IS an awful Pro sports town. Nothing wrong with that, I myself prefer College sports too.

Great move by the NHL and overdue frankly!

Quebec next?

 

[thefatguy]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Awful for the league and awful for the game.

You don't expand your brand by ditching a market sector to sell to people who are already buying your product.

Increased revenues are bad for the league?


Now the Cons are in power, they can buy votes with new arenas in Que City, Calgary and Edmonton :mrgreen:

 

[PhillyPuckNut]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Wasn't expecting Atlanta to be the team to go, but this was in the cards after all the talk of Phoenix going there. Winnipeg is a great hockey town (regardless of their population) and shouldn't have lost the Jets in the first place.

 

[G $MONEY$]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Winnipeg Metro population is around 800, 000, so its not like they are really tiny or anything. Plus they would also have the entire province of Manitoba (population 1.3 million) and some of Saskatchewan supporting them as well.

8th largest city in Canada.

 

[bmc398]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Winnipeg Metro population is around 800, 000, so its not like they are really tiny or anything. Plus they would also have the entire province of Manitoba (population 1.3 million) and some of Saskatchewan supporting them as well.

8th largest city in Canada.

The point is....it never had to be this way. The owners thought it was cool to have a hockey team for about 5 years, until they figured out they had no clue how to run one and no clue how to hire anybody who knew how to run one either.

I get that people in Winnipeg will support a hockey team more than Atlanta would...but at the same time here in Atlanta you'd have to capture far less of the market here to have equal attendance results to a city that only had 800,000 people.

In the end, its downright embarassing for the fans that its painted that we couldn't support the team. There were plenty of fans ready to support the team...if the owners would have supported their own team. The only real resolution was to sell locally here...and a local owner wasn't going to pay as much as they wanted....and then have to pay the spirit group even more to use their arena. It was a bad situation up and down. I just don't appreciate the misunderstanding that this was a fan support issue.

When you've built a loser and comitted to keeping it that way NOBODY is going to want to watch you play...no matter if you're in Atlanta, Pittsburgh (it wasn't always roses there), or Canada.

 

[gt2590]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Has the media in Winnipeg started working on a name yet?

Thrashers didn't work for ATL and certainly wouldn't work up there...

and they MUST trade for Selanne! :lol:

 

[PhillyPuckNut]

Re: Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg?

Winnipeg Metro population is around 800, 000, so its not like they are really tiny or anything. Plus they would also have the entire province of Manitoba (population 1.3 million) and some of Saskatchewan supporting them as well.

8th largest city in Canada.

The point is....it never had to be this way. The owners thought it was cool to have a hockey team for about 5 years, until they figured out they had no clue how to run one and no clue how to hire anybody who knew how to run one either.

Exactly, so they probably shouldn't have had a team in the first place.

Problem solved.